Getting Clean
by Syropeify
Summary: JXHQ: From the pov of a Henchmen looking into Harley's attempt to get clean from her addiction. One-shot. Drabble.


Author's Note: Based on Gotham City Sirens Harley & Joker. This is from the POV of a henchman.

**One-Shot**

"I need to get sober." These moments were rare for her. The admission that she was addicted, the desire to get clean. But I understood what she meant. Harley wasn't hooked on drugs or alcohol. She didn't crave the potent hallucinations of opium, the energy of ecstasy, the burning taste of vodka. Her addiction ran deeper, her compulsion intricately linked to something that is both more tangible than all the golden white bars of cocaine and more incorporeal than abstract philosophies of the self and existence.

Harley Quinn was addicted to the Joker. His thirst for chaotic disorder, his passion for death, his lust for mayhem. She was addicted to all that encompassed him. The colour of his skin, the darkness in his eyes, the menace in his smile. She was hopelessly hooked on the way he spoke and the way he moved. She was dependent on his touches, whether they were gentle and soothing, or harsh and painful. She craved him, all of him. Because she understood him, because they were alike.

I liked Harley. She was good to us, to us boys. Joker's henchmen. She treated us pretty well, made sure we were well-fed, taken care of. Harley tended to our injuries and provided us comfortable places to sleep. Harley was the humane quality that the Joker seemed to lack. She had compassion, however twisted it could be. She was sometimes even a mother to us, despite her childish behaviour. She always managed to make any hideout tolerable, little touches to make it more than just four walls and a roof.

But what really made me respect her, maybe in some form even love her, was the way in which she cared for the Joker. A way that meant the survival of the rest of us. Harley was adapt at tending to the Joker's needs, his whims and fantasies. She could anticipate what he wanted before he told her. And she took his beatings.

Once, when I was new and learning the ropes, the boss gave her a pretty rough thrashing, her screaming and whimpering echoing in the warehouse walls. Joey, my first mentor had had enough of it and told the Joker to stop, that she had had enough. I remember that day clearly, the sweat and tears, the blood running along the floors. Without so much as a mutter, the Joker pulled out his gun and shot Joey three times in the head, dead before he even hit the floor. He smiled and said nothing. He didn't need to. We all understood the message: Don't interfere. Don't tell him what to do. Learn your place. He had left her in a tangled heap of broken bones and bruises, and I had been the one brave enough to tend to her injuries.

Some of the other guys enjoyed her beatings, relished it. Some of them even got off on it. But not me. And not Big Jed. Jed was Joker's main muscle, and though didn't always demonstrate that he was the sharpest tool in the shed, he was caring. He beat the shit out of three of our guys who were laughing about Harley, about how she deserved it. They didn't understand what she was doing for them. How her abuse meant the continuance of our lives.

Harley and I had a special relationship, I was her right-hand man. Just as she was Joker's. But there was no romance between us, no blurred lines of work and love. Strictly business, between Harley and I. She could see that I was intelligent to a degree, that I could be trusted with tasks, that I could be depended on. Harley relied on me to organize the rest of the henchmen, the recruiting, the training. She treated me with respect, and I did the same. As much as I wanted to step in and stop the abuse, I couldn't. And Harley understood that.

So when she confided to me that she wanted to get clean, I was happy to help her.

It had started before that admission. Harley had started showing me how to do simple things for the boss, like how to prepare his favourite drink. She had also started getting me to attend planning with the Joker, getting me to contribute ideas, help with the research.

At first I was honoured, privileged. I felt like I was part of something bigger, something meaningful.

And then I began to realize, this wasn't just a way of getting me more involved, of acknowledging my talents. Harley was training me to take her place.

We were sitting silently, Harley sowing seams in the Joker's jacket while I was quietly reading and keeping her company when she made that admission. Told me she needed to get clean. I knew what she meant. She needed to leave.

"I can't go cold turkey." I nodded. She couldn't, she had tried, and always came crawling back. She had figured it out. She needed him to be taken care of, needed to make it so he didn't need her anymore, so she wouldn't try to come back. She needed to give herself a chance to make it on her own.

"What can I do to help?" She smiled.

"You're already helping…." I knew I was. We didn't speak much after that. Harley began teaching me everything, all the little things and the big. And not just me. She made it very clear that all of Joker's henchmen should know these things, at least the everyday tasks. In the beginning they struggled, Harley quick to correct their mistakes, to correct mine. No food went to him without her approval, every movement of ours judged and scrutinized. Privately, she coached me on how to anticipate his needs, how to read his moods. It was a long process, learning everything, getting the henchmen to learn.

Harley and I developed a system of training so everybody could do all the basics while I took on more complicated tasks.

It took months of preparation, and even then, Harley wrote a small booklet for us to refer back to. In case we forgot something. Something to pass on to future henchmen. It seems silly, a group of Joker's men, working for a master criminal, referring to a booklet. Like we were in grade school.

But what Harley had written in those pages was more valuable than anything we could ever steal from a heist. Those pages contained guidelines for our survival without her.

During this time, Harley began to work on distancing herself from him, weaning herself off of his toxicity and pleasure. I could see her struggling; often caving in to anything and everything he gave her. I could see her doubt, her uncertainty. She would disappear quietly for a day or two at first, never telling us where she was going. Soon those one or two days turned into three or four. If the Joker noticed her absence, he made no remark about it. She worked very hard to keep all of this as smooth as possible, as secretive as possible. She didn't want the boss to think he was losing his hold on her. She didn't want him to know.

There was one thing though that plagued my mind. None of us could really take Harley's place, not completely. Sure we could become right-hand men, men that the Joker could rely on. But none of us could or wanted to develop that intricate bond with him, a bond that ultimately determined life or death for us. So I worried about it. About Harley's plan. About her leaving us completely. I wondered if I could start sabotaging, making it so she couldn't leave. It sounds selfish, but I wanted to survive, and survival in this gang meant that the Joker had someone he could release his sadistic sexual desires upon. I didn't want that person to be me.

The weeks grew longer, Harley's disappearances more common-place. It became stranger to see her there than to not have her around. But she kept coming back, and I wondered if she'd be able to do this at all.

And then one night, Harley and the boss had a big fight. It was during a heist, a particularly difficult one, one that required the up-most level of thievery, of organization. Joker is a master of mayhem, of anarchy and disarray, but his plans require a surprising amount of order and discipline, something that Harley gave him. She had the ability to take his plans and turn them into masterpieces, by structuring them in such a way that they appeared disconnected and absurd, but were actually quite intricate and linked.

I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I have the sneaking suspicion she had planned it, prearranged the downfall, the mess of Joker's latest work. She had done it in such a way that it appeared that she had made the mistake, that it was not the fault of extenuating circumstances, but rather her own…inability to structure things, to organize things. She had effectively made it appear that it was her fault.

When we returned that night, bloody and bruised, some of our men held up in Gotham City Penitentiary, he was not in a good mood. He was angry, furious, deadly.

"Harley!" Aggravation in his voice. She appeared instantly, prepared for whatever onslaught he had coming her way. "Leave us." We turned to leave, but a firm grip on my shoulder had me stay put. "You will stay." Fear had bubbled up inside me. Maybe he had figured it out. He turned his attention back to Harley, venom brewing behind his eyes.

"I'm sorry puddin'…." She wasn't really. I could hear it. But I could also hear the fear, the uncertainty of what she was about to do. He slapped her, hard, her cheek bruising instantly as she fell to the floor.

"I don't even know why I keep you around." He kicked her in the stomach. "Lately you've shown a lack of ability to complete even the simplest tasks." Another kick in the back. Then he paused, pulled out a gun. "You know, sometimes when an animal can no longer serve its purpose, we put it out of its misery." Cocked the trigger. I wanted to push her out of the way, I wanted to stop him. But all I could do was stand there and watch. Then he threw the gun on the floor. "I think killing you would be showing you too much mercy Harley." He kicked the gun away and bent down, taking her maimed face into his hands. "I don't need you anymore Dr Quinzel, you've outlived your usefulness." He stood up and walked away, signaling for me to follow. I hesitated for a moment, looking back at Harley, curled up on the floor, heaving in pain, tears streaming down her face. Then I walked away and left her there.

She didn't come back after that, not during my time with the Joker. I realize now she had set that whole thing up, wanted to make it so he threw her out, make it so he didn't need her. Make it so they were no longer co-dependent on each other. I thought how clever of her, to strategically plan everything in such a way. Make it easier for her to leave, to make it on her own.

But something never did seem right. It almost seemed too easy for her. There was something missing from the puzzle.

And then one day, it clicked. Of course, the day it clicked was the day that the Joker killed me. A heist had gone wrong. And this time it was my fault, a mistake on my part, a mistake I didn't mean to make. With a gun to my head, cocked, ready to fire death, the Joker leaned down and cupped my face, his menacing eyes drilling holes into mine. When he spoke, his voiced oozed arrogance and venom…

"I knew all along." _Bang_. I don't remember anything after that. Just the comforting haze of darkness enveloping me, a strange sensation of falling to the floor, no pain, just one last thought.

He had known all along.

-End-


End file.
